Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Monday that the Biden administration would be looking to offer the “largest expansion of contraception coverage” in more than a decade.
“Every woman in every state must have reproductive freedom and access to the health care they need,” Harris said in a statement on Monday. “That is why I have fought to lower health care costs and protect the ability of every woman to make her own decisions about her own body.”
Among the changes coming in the expansion from the Biden administration include a proposal that will look to offer women “more options for the affordable contraception they need and deserve.”
“That includes coverage for no-cost over-the-counter contraception without a prescription for the first time in our nation’s history,” Harris said. “These lower contraception costs would be in addition to the billions of dollars that women have already saved on contraception under the Affordable Care Act, which President Biden and I have strengthened since taking office.”
Harris went on to take a shot at Republicans, saying the effort to protect and expand health care options comes as Republicans in Congress blocked legislation to protect the right to contraception across the country.
She also said that they have “consistently refused to protect access to IVF and continue to propose national abortion bans.”
“President Biden and I stand with the majority of Americans – Republicans and Democrats alike – who support access to contraception,” Harris said. “And we continue to call on Congress to pass federal legislation that restores reproductive freedom nationwide.”
More information has not been given on how the administration will look to complete this expansion at this time.
The election is about two weeks away, and the Democratic nominee continues to present herself as the antithesis of former President Donald Trump.
Trump has maintained that he would not sign a national abortion ban and would look to expand coverage for IVF and other fertility treatments. Still, Trump has conflicting statements, as he’s also praised and taken credit for the Dobbs decision, which saw Roe v. Wade and the abortion protections it offered overturned.
Harris has hammered Trump on abortion throughout the last few weeks, including at a rally in Atlanta over the weekend. The vice president blamed the death of Amber Thurman on Georgia’s abortion restrictions, which she says wouldn’t be in effect if Roe v. Wade wasn’t overturned.
“Donald Trump still refuses to take accountability, to take any accountability, for the pain and the suffering he has caused,” Harris said on Sunday.